Deadman Wonderland

So, rather than resuming episodic reviews, in this case I just went and sat through the rest of the series. It's been a while, so I don't know if anyone would pick up the thread for lack of relevance.

I will give the series credit on one point. It did NOT devolve into endless arena combat, but it does switch gears halfway through. After two fights, there's a bit of a wrap-up to the Takami Yoh arc - his sister it turns out is one of the "Deadmen" and he deliberately got into the prison to amass a huge amount of the Cast Points in order to buy his sister's sentence out. Unfortunately, once he tracks her down to the hidden G-block, he's told that prisoners there can not buy their sentences off. He is moved almost completely off the chessboard by having the living snot beaten out of him by one of the anti-deadman enforcers they suddenly introduce, called Undertakers.

Ganta falls in with a crew planning to bust out. And this introduces the reason I decided to finish watching, there's a girl with dark skin and almost-white hair. I really like that combination in Anime girls, I have ever since I saw Pirotess in The Legend Lodoss War. Doesn't hurt that she's fairly stacked, and she's the second in command of the group. Her blood power forms an impenetrable shield on her skin. It's kind of improbable that they had a sort of bar to hang out in off the G-block.

The plotters are taking advantage of a week-long inspection tour of the prison, during which a lot of the skeevier elements are hidden away. They have one super-hacker on the crew, and he's prepared a data drive full of evidence that will bring the place down. All they have to do is break out far enough to get it into the hands of a government official or member of the press.

Ah, they're so naive.

Their data expert is a traitor, actually a member of the undertakers, and it's all a setup. The data drive is not only a fake, it's an explosive device. They don't know this. While the leader and the hacker breach the control room to open the freight elevator for the others, the Undertakers make their move.

And at this point, they introduce one of the most improbable of characters, my disbelief had to be suspended by the neck until it stopped twitching. Clearly they must be borrowing from Bleach or something. The undertaker who shows up to take out the leader of the escape crew is a little 7-year old girl with a giant chain-blade axe twice her size that has no respect for the laws of physics. She has a background in punishment that makes Mommie Dearest look like Teletubbies, and apparently this led her to kill all of her kindergarten classmates for their deficiencies.

The leader manages to knock out the hacker, and drive off the girl and activate the freight elevator, which the rest of the crew takes, and which, naturally, leads them to a slaughter. He gets on the coms to warn anyone listening at the clubhouse about the data drive, but of course, nobody's there. Well, except Shiro, who, not having any blood powers (that anyone knows about) has been left out of the plot. With most of the crew dead, for some reason the Undertakers and their troops retreat. Shiro arrives via an alternate route, grabs the drive from Ganta's hand, and chucks it in a burning storeroom where it explodes. The fact that the store-room was full of flammables disguises the reason for the explosion, and Shiro's nutgirl logic is unable to explain why she did what she did. All Ganta can figure out is that she just ruined the escape plot, he punches her and they have a falling out.

There's a bit of business where the leader of the Undertakers captures and brainwashes the leader to be one of them, while the remains of the crew are held hostage to ensure his co-operation. The data guy comes in to gloat, reveals that the USB-like data chip was a fake AND a bomb, and that he was the one who edited the video that convicted Ganta, among other things. He also has a dislike for Ganta and wants him killed first, by two thug-like Undertakers who are given brief flash-back introductions (one raised by bears in the woods, the other an Ed Gein-like serial killer). The first guy Ganta fought, who wasn't in on the escape plot, whose blood forms sword blades on his arms, crashes in, kills the two thugs, and Says something about wanting to get in on the fight. "Who are their toughest guys?" he asks. One of the crew points to the floor, "I think they were." He looks very disappointed. Melee ensues, the squad is killed, that Data guy captured and beaten for intel. Dark/White announces they're going to break out anyway, and that demonstrating their powers would be enough to prove that something hinky is going on in the prison. Ganta is left out of the plan.


At some point, Dark/White is captured (after switching into some captured Undertaker armor - but her voice gives her away), along with Shiro, and unspeakable things are going to be done to them if they don't all surrender. But the crew sticks to the plan. Ganta, being out of the deal, goes to the rescue, and basically gets his clock cleaned. Dark/White is nearly killed by the brainwashed leader, who goes on to massacre basically everyone in the room, but Ganta interposes himself as a human punching bag when he comes after Shiro. Eventually though, he snaps out of it (cued by a bell Dark/White wears around her neck), and the leader of the Undertakers is defeated.

Three of the crew escape. The director doesn't quite care since none of them are on the official roll of the prison. Major Boobs, er, Makina, who with her data girl managed to get the goods on the director slyly agrees that everything is okay, but well, if there's a season 2, something might happen with that.

Of course, there was no season 2, and I suppose the Manga may even still be going. So it stops, but it doesn't end. Ganta and Shiro are reconciled, but they don't escape. Shiro had been revealed to have also been the Red Man responsible for it all, but only to the viewers. I guess she wanted Ganta to be with her to "play".

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Okay, so...

Since I can't whine about not getting any comments for three months (by one day), can I at least whine about not being on anyone's Blogroll?

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Yumekui Merry - Dream-eater Merry

(Sheesh, I now have TWO unfinished draft posts lurking under the surface.)

Anyway, I've been trying to work my way through the various series I've downloaded and never watched over the past few years, and decided to take them on alphabetically. (And this came first because the circle was Ayako.)

And the verdict is, "Man, I should have recovered that drive space ages ago."

What a MESS this show is. Clearly they expected a second season or something, or else they just dropped plot lines left and right for lack of attention span. They certainly didn't pay much attention to what they were doing. I mean, they set up one big bad, and then halfway through, they completely forgot about him to play with another big bad who was cuter and more psychotic.

So, the Hero is a guy who can see auras when he looks through his thumb and forefinger, and predict people's dreams, and he meets Merry, who is a girl from the dream realm somehow lost in the real world. Our hero is haunted in his dreams by a dream villain who has an army of anthropomorphic cats who chase him through his dreams. But this isn't too important, since they drop him after a couple of episodes.

Our Hero can somehow forcefully enter the "Daydream" state, and bring Merry with him, where she fights off the other dream creatures, called Muma, who are taking over humans, making them their "Vessels."

And this is where the concept breaks down. Because there are about four different factions here. There's an organized Big Bad, who acts as a "Lighthouse" drawing Muma towards the real world, where they can lodge themselves in people's dreams, another crazy one called alternatively "Mistilteinn" (Mistleteen in the subs) or "Sea of Trees." She's a very powerful Muma who basically murders other Muma for kicks. There's another girl who is the vessel for a sort of dream cop who wants revenge on Mistleteen, and another girl who is the host of yet another revenge-seeker named Engi who is after the first big bad for luring her sister off to her death.

One of the side effects of killing off a Muma who has successfully infested the dreams of someone is they become listless and unmotivated and lose their dream in life. (Now, sometimes this is actually a positive, symbiotic relationship, but the big bad has perverted this). BUT, in the first few episodes, Merry does this exact thing, making her just as bad, although the results aren't shown. Engi is also out slaughtering Muma who are part of the Big Bad's plot, with similar devastating results for the victims.

But the worst of the worst is Mistilteinn, since her host is the school's guidance councilor who is equally as evil and hateful as her. He builds up the dreams of his students so that they will be a much tastier slaughter for Mistilteinn, and it's also implied that he has brought to her some new things to do in the dream state that involve tearing off her clothes. Together, they are a really nasty piece of work.

The Cop type tends to run his vessel's life into the ground, she lives in a filthy apartment filled with the cans of coffee which is her only sustenance, has no friends, and she slips into the dream state because the Cop's gun which supposedly can kill Mistilteinn runs on the deaths of dreams, they're saving up enough for one "bullet."

Eventually Merry and Engi, who have allied, realize they can't just keep killing off other Muma, which puts them at the typical good guys' dilemma.  Especially when it turns out that our hero's sister, whose passion is art, has attracted a cute little Muma of her own, making her a delicious target for the guidance councilor. They battle Mistilteinn a couple of times to protect her, but avoid letting her in on the secret battle through the mechanism of having her unconscious all the time.

The final battle (and remember, the big bad is forgotten by this point) results in Mistilteinn thoroughly kicking everybody's ass, the gun failing to kill her, and even our hero, who has been utterly useless in a fight so far getting his ass handed to him. BUT, he has one thing going for him, "heart" and that inspires Merry to revival, and eventually to beating Mistilteinn. It is WEAK storytelling at best, and so many things get lost along the way, like our hero's quest to help Merry get back to the dream world, or the explanation about how she got to the real world without a vessel, or even why the cat guy makes a brief appearance as a useful source of information after an eight episode absence.

There are only a few bright spots about it. First is that they DON'T feel compelled to suddenly make Merry start going to our hero's school (Although they do get her to work briefly in the family cafe). Engi is a rather attractive character with her ball gown and crystal swords (and the oddest opera-length ... mittens ... ever), and when the cat guy for some reason helps spiritually heal our hero in the dream world, it is with the helpful ministrations of a couple of cat-girls.

Sorry, no screen shots. I was watching it on Etna, and I don't feel like going through this mess again to find a few shots. (although, if I get enough requests, I might pick a few things.)

There is a beach episode that is the most poorly justified excuse of a beach episode ever. For the plot holes, abandoned plot threads, the obvious openings for a second season that never came, and the heroine who is the least special Muma in the show (seemingly the only one without powers), I'm ashamed I allowed this trash to take up my drive space for two years. It's just utterly unsatisfying.

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Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko - Ep. 3

In the open, Youto tells us in a voice over how he is developing - in spite of himself - feelings for Azusa. Not romantic feelings, but concern. It bugs him a little, since he'd rather just be concerning himself with lusting after girls in swimsuits, and seeing their bras through their slightly transparent summer blouses. But he is realizing she is a real person, not just an objective in getting his facade back. And thus, she's always on his mind now.

Towards dealing with this, he goes to visit her at her apartment. After the debacle in the arcade, she has shut herself in her room, and her borrowed facade is turned up to Eleven. Through the door she insists that she intentionally let them trick her as a way of shedding herself of their unwanted friendship. Unsuccessful at getting through to her, he ends up chatting with her mom. It's not terribly productive, but he learns that Tukiko has also visited, and when he talks to her, he learns that she was similarly rebuffed.

They sit at the one cedar in front of the cat and have a bit of a chat (There's a cute bit of business where she denies him access to the bag of meat buns. There's a very definite limit she has when it comes to sharing her snacks). She gives him some advice about talking to Azusa, although he has some trouble wrestling with what it is he really wants to say - even with his compulsive honesty.

The next day, he tracks down the bullies, and they swear, they weren't really bullying Azusa, but they did tease her a lot out of affection, perhaps too much sometimes. The breaking point though was when they told her the wrong destination for the school trip, sending her to Hokkaido instead of Okinawa, immediately after which she transferred schools. They intended to catch her and correct her at the airport so they could all go on the trip together, but she made her own way as far as Sapporo so they totally missed her. They're sorry, but Youto berates them for fools for not saying anything to Azusa.


Next stop, Azusa's apartment again, where mom unlocks her bedroom door and allows Youta to remove her bodily from the premises. She's summoned them a cab and he takes her to the cat statue. During the trip, they have a bit of a heart to heart, where he shows he's actually figured her out, and persuades her to go through with the ritual. Although because of that honesty problem he's got, he confesses to her that he's totally not into her at all, at least not that way. After the prayer, the choker she's wearing disappears, and Youta gets back the belt that disappeared from around the body pillow he had tried to sacrifice. He does manage to convince her that he does at least want to be friends with her. It's not a total cure for her social anxiety, but he can lie to encourage her now.

After the break, we get what at first I thought was a dream, but turned out to be a flashback. Tsukiko is standing on a sort of concrete igloo thing in a playground, wearing an oni mask. Youto pokes through the hedge and they chat. She's wearing the mask because her emotions play across her face too easily. She wants to be a kindergarten teacher, but while her open emotions make it easier to bond with the children, she feels she can't be taken seriously as a teacher. The Oni mask though, has alienated her from the kids. He suggests that perhaps she should try a different mask. And later on, she tries a really cute kitty mask, which goes over well. They apparently had several conversations on that playground, but he never saw her without a mask, and they never exchanged names. But recalling these visits in her flashback, Tsukiko realizes it was Youto she'd been talking with back then.


Azusa catches up with Youto in the breezeway between the school buildings and stammers out a request that perhaps they hang out or go on a date or something, and Youto agrees. Tsukiko, standing behind the doorframe, overhears, but of course, we can't see how she feels about this on her face.

Shortly afterward, Youto comes into a classroom where Tsukiko is working on a picture story presentation for the kids. She comments on how she saw how he and Azusa seem to have made up. (She also wants to make up with Azusa, but in spite of the turtle plush with a note attached to it that she had staged at the cat statue for Azusa to find, nothing has come of it so far). Youto thanks her for her help, and she suggests that if he wants to thank her, he should go on a date with her. She's a very conflicted girl, hating his being a perv, but apparently still liking him even though she can't express it. She reads him her story, but while the illustrations are great (she did them herself and he compliments her talent) the delivery was totally flat.

Through the window, they see the track team running and Tsukushi "motivating" them with a kendo sword. He asks about her relationship with her older sister, and she tells him that Tsukushi hates her. This revelation shocks him (although he should already know what a cast iron bitch she is from his time on the track team).

(Ack!  Just realized that screenshots are capturing the subtitles.  It didn't do that before. Gotta figure out a fix for the future.)

Posted by: Mauser at 03:21 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko - Ep. 2

Oh god. This show is so funny it HURTS!

I do think that the other circle had a better hand at the various figures of speech than Commie, and it was a BD rather than a TV catch. But I had to have this, and I'm deliriously amused.

I'm only halfway into the second episode and I had to take a break.

Youto cracked Azusa's facade by offering to be her dog, and the teaser has him going through his day doing this, which is already amusing. But then, Youto and Tsukiko head to the next town over to go to a little cafe and plot their next move. There's some odd tension there, as Tsukiko's expressionlessness has made it even harder to read her meaning. There might be some sort of interest there, but it's buried deep.

The Cafe is a "Pet cafe" where there are animals around for the customers to enjoy. There are also an abundance of kemono-mimi Maid girls working there. Youto has no choice to explain why he chose this place. But he had no way of knowing that Azusa actually works there. Hilarity ensues, and I MEAN hilarity. At least until Tsukiko drags him out of the place before he can get his order from Azusa, complete with "Say Ahhh!" service.

They shelter from the rain in the vestibule of a love hotel across the street, waiting for Azusa to leave work, and there's that tension again. Unfortunately they get chased off by the manager, and lose sight of Azusa, so the "Just talk to her" plan goes out the window. They later run across her again directing traffic at a construction site.

Youto confronts Azusa the next day about how her rich princess routine is all a fake. But he doesn't use this to blackmail her. Instead, he asks her out on a date. Tsukiko insists that she's coming too.

That's the first half.

The Date proceeds, with Tsukiko following at a distance (one character trait I've left out is that even though she is a tiny little thing, she is always consuming enormous snacks). Youto is determined to show Asusa the things that make commoners like him happy (although I thought he'd already determined that she was not who she pretended to be.) and yet, his first stop is a bridal shop. That doesn't go over well. The maternity clinic even less so. Proving that he's serious about her this way is not endearing him to her. She even wonders if he somehow has made her pregnant, while she's beating the crap out of him (the running punch she starts with is epic). Tsukiko saves him by interrupting the beating, which leads to one of those odd confrontations that only happen in Harem shows, where two girls end up fighting over a guy they're both pretending not to be interested in.

They go to an Arcade. Tsukiko demonstrates excellent skills in most of the things there, especially crane machines, where she also scores a stuffed turtle that Azusa really has her eyes on, and gives it to her. But after all the fun, Azusa has to break it, insisting that they are not all friends, and that friendships are just trouble. Tsukiko advises him not to corner her on this. While Azusa is off in the bathroom, they are suddenly confronted by the captain of the track team, who is there apparently rounding up members of the team who aren't spending their free day practicing. She demands to know what they two of them are doing there together. Tsukiko replies that they are on a date, and the captain is outraged. Youto asks how they know each other, and we then learn the captain's name, Tsutsukakushi Tsukushi, Tsukiko's older sister. She's about to give him a royal thrashing when he comes up with an... innovative... escape plan.

Azusa in the meantime has been left alone in the arcade, and two other girls notice her, calling her "Little bean." This is not a happy reunion for her. They seem to be bullies from her old school. Youto and Tsukiko arrive just as they leave her, and she blames them for setting this all up to mock her, and runs away crying.

So this part isn't quite so funny.

But you hope they will work something out.

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Life's a Beach Episode

(Hmmm, why did this one center when the last one didn't? I dunno, but somehow I just fixed that one too.)

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Unbreakable Machine Girl - Ep. 1

It's very pretty, I will give it that. The art style is lush, and the eyes are unlike any anime eyes I have ever seen.

BUT, I have serious doubts about the story, and that's only from one episode.

The hero, Raishin, is a Japanese "Puppeter," a sort of Technomancer, and Yaya is his "Doll," a living puppet who is brought to life by her magician's mana. Basically a Familiar. Considering how some of the other puppets eat, it's not definitive that they are purely mechanical.

It starts with an action sequence, where the train they are on heading to an English school for puppeteers goes runaway. Raishin and Yaya rescue the train stopping it just before it smashes into its terminus.

Raishin gets to the school, but is admitted only as the second to last lowest rank. But all that matters is that he is there. He has a goal. He wants to get into the top 100, where they have one all or nothing, last man standing battle called the Evening Party, and he gets to earn the singular title Wiseman. It's not riches, fame, money or power that are his goal, although if he wins all those will be his. It's revenge.

Part of his strategy is to Take the rank of one of the top 100 students. In this case a blonde tsundere pettanko named Charlotte Blue (Who is still very, very solidly tsun at the moment) by defeating her in a battle. Her familiar is a small shoulder dragon who scales up to full size for a fight. She is a total terror feared by everyone at the school, and friendless.

Perhaps most annoying though, is Yaya, who is constantly jealous of any perceived interest of Raishin's in any other woman, which she tries unnecessarily to thwart by making awkward sexual references to herself and Raishin, and physically molesting him in their dorm, or choking him in public. She is quite a cute character design, but I am definitely not enamored of her personality.

The purpose of the school is to train the best puppeteers where they will then go on to lead armies of puppets for the nations of the world. They are there to learn War. But frankly, this looks like Pokemon battles to me, and I hate Arena Combat shows.

It sure is pretty though.

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Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko - Ep. 1

I grabbed this totally at random because I couldn't find the shows I was looking for, and it was a hoot!

The title translated is "The Pervert Prince and the Stony Cat".

Up on Lone Cedar Hill there is a stone cat statue, who, if you give it an offering, will take something you don't need and give it to someone else.

Our "Hero," Yokodera Youto is a bit of a letch, but his life is always complicated by his "facade," for example, he can't tell the iron bitch of a track team captain that no, he really doesn't want to be her successor and that the only reason he shows up to practice every single day is so he can do squats and look through the window at the girls swim team. If he could be honest, he might have less trouble. His buddy went, and gave up his earthly desires and now wants to work for world peace (As a side benefit, he gives our hero all his rare porn for ¥100 -"Enough to provide a poor child with 40 liters of water!").

So, Youto goes to the statue at night with a "Hugging pillow" he doesn't want any more. He's discovered by a young girl who naturally sees the situation as the worst, and runs away screaming. But he catches her trying to explain, and yes, there is a fall into a compromising position. Amazingly, she buys his explanation. And her reason for coming: She is way too free with her emotions, she wants to be more mature and in control.

They both decide to pray to the cat together. But since their earlier antics were so disrespectful... well, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it" comes into play.

They don't realize this is the case until much later. A new transfer student, Azuki Azusa, a rich, blonde heiress and stone bitch is putting down her latest suitor in a brutal and cutting way, and Youto can't help himself, going on loudly and at length about her flat chest. He literally can't stop himself from saying what's on his mind - he's helplessly honest, and he's doing this in front of the whole school. She tries to put on a brave front, since she's utterly unfamiliar with anyone being anything but differential to her. Fortunately they're interrupted by the buxom track team captain, and the curse strikes again. He yells at her for wearing track shorts instead of short tights (spats) "You're killing every adolescent's BDSM Fetishism!"

This outburst in front of a whole crowd of students ruins his reputation, and they all start calling him the Pervert Prince. (Remember that up until now, he's been an expert at putting up a false front).

Then one day a small girl comes into the class. He doesn't remember her at first until she tackles him and pulls him down on top of her, reminding him that she's the girl from the hill. Tsutsukakushi Tsukiko. Her problem is that the cat statue robbed her of the ability to form any kind of facial expression. She can't even blush even though she is terribly embarrassed by the position they're in, as she tells him in a dead monotone.

Together they must plot to find people who don't need the things they need to get back, and the first thing they realize is that Azusa is the one who got Youto's facade. How he uses her new inability to tell the truth in front of groups of people to catch her is hilarious.

This was a total surprise, and put out by a group I've never heard of, Subara, but I'm definitely keeping my eyes out for future releases. It will probably be some kind of Harem, but so far it looks to be a really funny one. (And really, I grabbed it for the word Neko, not Hentai! I swear!)

Update: Turns out this series was completed in June and I merely ran across the first BD release.  Commie has the whole 12 episodes out, so it's time to slurp.

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WTF Windows?!

So I'm reorganizing some pictures, some are duplicates. At least under XP, if I dragged a file into a folder with a file that had the same name, it would ask me which version to keep. But Windows 7 has nerfed that ability.

*Drags file into folder desired*
Windows: "The source and destination file names are the same."
Me: "Yes, I know that, overwrite the file."
Windows: "Sorry, your only option is Cancel."

Trying it with multiple files
Windows: "Okay, your options now are Skip or Cancel, with a checkbox to do that for all files (Even if that makes no sense for cancel)."
Me: "WTF happened to replace?!"
Windows: "Hehehe. U Mad?"

(Update: Seems to be related to accessing your files through the "Library" system instead of your directory structure.  I hate this system.  I'd like to turn it off.)

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Clearly...

... I need to make a new post, since the old ones aren't getting comments any more.

This isn't it.

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